


Only Bad Things

by hellraisin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, MWPP Era, Remus Lupin's tragic life, Sirius Post-Azkaban, Sirius Pre-Azkaban, lycanthropy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:31:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellraisin/pseuds/hellraisin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus is used to having things ripped away from him. Although a small part of him knows it’s not always his fault, and he’s not always to blame, a much larger, much more powerful part of him always manages to convince him that he is. He feels like the immovable object; constantly bracing for impact with the unstoppable force, never knowing who or what it is or where or when it’s coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Bad Things

Remus is used to having things ripped away from him. Although a small part of him knows it’s not always his fault, and he’s not always to blame, a much larger, much more powerful part of him always manages to convince him that he is. He feels like the immovable object; constantly bracing for impact with the unstoppable force, never knowing who or what it is or where or when it’s coming.

He is barely even five when Fenrir Greyback creeps in through his window, deep blue eyes cunning and deceitful. Part of him knows it is his father’s fault that Fenrir wants to bite him, but he spends the better part of his childhood blaming himself.

 _Bad things only happen to bad children_ , Remus tells himself.

His humanity is snatched too quickly for him to register; the breaking of skin and the pooling of blood, a bright light from the end of his father’s wand as he drives the werewolf out. Greyback leaves, but the werewolf remains, just in a different body. It isn’t just his humanity that is taken that night, but any respect his father had for him. Lyall tries, for as long as he can, to care for Remus; but his son sees the fear in his eyes as the full moon draws nearer, sees the determination to cure him. Remus isn’t sure whether that perseverance is to clear him of his affliction... or to rid Lyall of his own guilt.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t allow himself to hope for things, because whichever force it is that controls life and death always seeks out what it is Remus wants most and makes sure there is no chance he will achieve it. He reads a lot as a child, both fiction and non-fiction, and he quickly learns of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He doesn’t let himself hope. Doesn’t cross his fingers, or bring it up with his parents, because he knows there is no chance he’ll get in.

His father knows it too. He tries to home-school Remus, because he knows that Hogwarts would never take in a werewolf.

Albus Dumbledore turns up on the doorstep just before his eleventh birthday.

Remus gets the best news he’s had in his entire life.

 

* * *

 

His childhood is marred by his own loneliness, and it’s only when he arrives at Hogwarts and makes the acquaintance of three other boys that Remus realises how deprived he has been. Lyall never let him play with the other children, for fear of the curse spreading; like it’s something that can be passed around as simply as a common cold.

James Potter is, frankly, an arrogant arsehole, but there’s something in his charming ways and his acceptance of most people he meets that makes Remus like him. Trust him even. Sirius Black is practically James’s brother, even though Sirius already has one of his own. He’s a dark haired boy with kind eyes and a constant smirk on his face, and despite his cocky attitude, he’s got his heart in the right place.

They’re pampered pure-bloods, there’s no doubt about it, and Remus can’t help but compare himself on a regular basis. He tells this to them once, and Sirius reminds him that he’s betraying his family’s strict pure-blood ways just by being friends with him.

Remus thinks that’s supposed to make him feel better. He’s not sure if it works.

They talk about their lives outside of Hogwarts by the light of the common room fire, and he tells them that although his father has a respectable position in the Ministry, they’ve had to move around a lot. He doesn’t say what for. Doesn’t tell them that they’ve skipped from village to village over the last six years because their neighbours were getting scared of the noises they hear coming from the Lupin family’s house. He wants to keep this to himself; keep a scrap of himself hidden away. He isn’t sure whether it’s because he wants to protect his new friends so soon, or whether it’s because he wants to protect himself from the pain of being given these friends and then having them snatched away because of his disease.

Of course, they’re smarter than he gives them credit for. They find out in second year.

“How long have you known?” he asks, fringe falling in his eyes. His hands are shaking, and he’s swallowing thickly. They’re going to tell everyone at Hogwarts, and even if Dumbledore doesn’t throw him out, he’ll still be part of the freak show. They’re going to desert him, and he’ll be lonely and friendless again.

Perhaps his father was right to keep him away from the other children. Perhaps it really _is_ all his fault that this is happening to him. _Bad things only happen to bad children._

“Only about a month or so ago. We pieced everything together,” James shrugs, running a hand through the dark mop of curly hair that sits atop his head.

Remus shakes his head softly. “How did you work it out?”

“Well,” says Sirius, “you kept disappearing around the full moon. That was the biggest giveaway. And of course, there were a lot of new scratches and scars all over you. So... unless you’ve been up to some pretty raunchy things over the last few years, the logical assumption is-“

“-that you’re a werewolf,” snivels the third boy, Peter Pettigrew. He’s a lump of a boy, with not much of a brain in his head, but Remus isn’t one to judge. He has friends now, and he’ll accept them as best as he can – if he doesn’t drive them away first.

“And,” Remus stutters out, tucking his fringe back, “you’re not scared of me?”

“Scared?” Sirius laughs. “Remus, you alphabetise your books. I’m more scared of Filch’s bloody cat than I am of you.” Remus finds himself smiling, sincerely, for the first time in a very long time. Sirius smiles back.

He was expecting this to get ripped away from him too, but he’s never had friends before. And maybe whichever force it is that controls life and death has decided to let him have some for a change.

 

* * *

 

By the end of the Hogwarts experience, Remus isn’t the broken boy he was seven years ago. He’s been patched together with bandages and plasters, sellotape and sheer willpower. He has more scars than he has friends, and he has more friends than he has reasons to give a shit. He moves into a flat with Sirius and James, but James doesn’t stay for long before he’s finding a place of his own with Lily. She’s easily become the fourth friend that Remus never knew he needed. Part of him wishes Lily had just moved in with them; maybe she could convince the lads to clear up for once.

With James gone, Sirius is a terrible roommate. He leaves socks on the sofa, wet towels on the floor. Food that Remus had left in the fridge for the next day’s breakfast seem to have gone missing in the middle of the night, and he finds the subsequent wrappers strewn all over Sirius’s bedroom floor. Sirius comes home most nights smelling of smoke and cheap booze and about six different types of perfume, but Remus doesn’t even care.

It’s hardly perfect, but it’s a good start. It’s a well-furnished flat, and he has the best company he could have hoped for, so Remus doesn’t have much to complain about. He can’t hold down a job due to his werewolf problem, but even that doesn’t slow him down most days. In a flat with Sirius, he feels alive. He feels warm and happy and vibrant.  He feels like not even the unstoppable force could crash into him now.

 

* * *

 

He’s wrong.

The unstoppable force hits on the 31st of October, 1981. It collides with every atom in his being, and shreds him into finer pieces than his claws ever could. Not even bandages, or plasters, or sellotape, or sheer willpower could put him back together now. He reverts back to the same broken boy he was when he was growing up with his mother and father. In the space of a few hours, all four of his friends are taken from him. Two of them are hunted down by the darkest wizard known to man, one of them is cut into tiny pieces, and the fourth...

Remus doesn’t even want to think about Sirius.

 He should be angry, blood boiling and fists clenching. He should want to get his revenge; he should march to the gates of Azkaban and force them to reinstate the death penalty. The Dementors aren’t a good enough punishment for the things Sirius has done.

But he isn’t angry. Not even in the slightest.

He doesn’t clench his fists, or smash up the flat.

He curls into a small ball behind the sofa and he cries. He allowed himself to hope for good things, and whichever force it is that controls life and death chose death every time. Three times. Remus tells himself that it’s his fault. That _bad things happen to bad people_. But not even he could have anticipated this. Couldn’t have stopped it even if he knew. It’s the unstoppable force he’s been bracing for his whole life.

And even with twenty one years of preparation, he is the farthest from prepared he has ever been.

 

* * *

 

The first time Remus lays eyes on Harry Potter, he has to spend the first few minutes convincing himself that it isn’t James. Well actually, that’s a lie. He spends the first few minutes defending him from a Dementor who’s searching for Sirius (he doesn’t let himself dwell on that for too long – the thought of Sirius escaping fills him with dread, and fear, and anger, and a tinge of hope that he quickly extinguishes) and _then_ a few minutes convincing himself that Harry isn’t James. The boy has the same hair, the same features, the same build that James had in his third year. The only difference is the colour of his eyes, the one thing that makes him undoubtedly Lily’s son.

It almost hurts him to look at Harry. Not just because he reminds him so vividly of the friends he loved and lost, but also because he can see the pain in the boy’s eyes. Harry might not have known his parents, but he has the pictures, and living with his Muggle relatives for thirteen years has taken its toll. Remus doesn’t understand why it all had to happen to Harry, such a nice boy. He tells himself what he always has, that _bad things happen to bad people_ , but for the first time in a long time, he tells himself to shut up. Harry is the furthest from a bad person Remus has ever met.

Over the course of the year Remus is teaching at Hogwarts for, he divides his time equally between teaching Harry his patronus, and avoiding any idle chatter about the escaped prisoner of Azkaban. He doesn’t pick up a Daily Prophet for months, because he doesn’t want to know. He point-blank refuses to look at the wanted posters that are dotted all over the wizarding world, but it doesn’t last for long. He catches a glimpse, whether he means to or not, and sees Sirius screaming back at him. He’s far from the kind-eyed, smirking boy that he was when they were teenagers. He looks mad. Absolutely insane. But Remus still isn’t scared of him, even after all this time.

He finds Harry with the Marauder’s map in a corridor. Technically, he finds it in the hands of Severus Snape, but it’s Harry he gives the lecture to. Remus hasn’t seen the map in years, and it’s frankly a cruel reminder of the fun he had with his friends back in their youth. It isn’t until Harry tells him who he’d seen roaming the halls of Hogwarts that Remus closes in on himself again.

At first, he allows himself to believe that he can rebuild some kind of friendship with Peter now that he knows he’s alive. Tells himself that he can salvage the scraps of their broken bond and piece it back together. But sometimes Remus is smarter than he gives himself credit for. He works it out surprisingly quickly.

Sirius is innocent.

Remus breathes it out; both a sigh of relief, and a shaky breath of regret.

 

* * *

 

“Well, well, well... looking rather ragged tonight, aren’t we Sirius? Finally, the flesh reflects the madness within,” Remus hums as he points his wand at the crazed man he sees before him on the floor. Sirius doesn’t look mad – not like in all those pictures. He looks tired. Drained.

“Well you’d know all about the madness within, wouldn’t you, Remus?” Sirius smirks. Remus has missed that smirk. He looks down at Sirius and pockets his wand, overcome with a flurry of emotions that he can’t possibly begin to put labels on, and lifts the man to his feet. He hugs him. For the first time in twelve years, he hugs him. It’s the same as it was all those years ago, except not; Sirius is so much thinner, so much colder to the touch. Remus can feel the man’s ribs.

Hermione has worked out that he’s a werewolf, but not even that slows Remus down. Ten years ago, he’d have denied it, or fled. Now, he stands before the brightest witch of her age and confirms it, head held high, and arm still wrapped around his dear old friend.

Peter joins the party not long later, and it’s like the Marauders are reunited. Remus only wishes that James was there too, but he is, he realises quickly. James and Lily are both there within Harry. The sentimentality doesn’t last for long, as Sirius is desperate for revenge. He might not be the bloody-thirsty serial killer that everyone has made him out to be, but Remus can see a glint in his eyes, and it’s not the mischievous one he used to have at Hogwarts. Looking at Peter, the boy who singlehandedly ruined the lives of at least three people in the room, Remus finds himself overwhelmed by an anger that he didn’t even know he possessed. He looks at Peter and sees nothing but a traitor. He wants him to get what he deserves for betraying James and Lily, and he wants to be the one to give it to him. _Bad things only happen to bad people_ , he tells himself, and Peter is the worst.

But it’s Harry who steps forward and says no, says James wouldn’t want his best friends to do this, and that’s all it takes for Remus and Sirius to stand down. They’d do anything for James, even in his memory. Remus looks at Harry for a moment, and realises that he’s more like Lily than he previously thought.

Remus doesn’t remember anything else that happens after they get out from beneath the Whomping Willow. All he knows is what he is told; he transformed, and Sirius fought him almost to the death to protect Harry Potter. He’s never been more proud of him.

 

* * *

 

Sirius isn’t the same at all, Remus learns quickly. He is broken and scarred in all the ways that Remus is, but his pain is much less physical. All the life, all the mischief and the flirtatious nature that Sirius once possessed has been sucked out of him during his time in Azkaban. He’s a tired man, with tired eyes, and no willpower to do anything. Remus cannot fix him. He doesn’t know how.

Sirius is a whirlwind of fluctuating bouts of anger, sadness and regret. He drinks a lot of firewhiskey and spends a lot of time sleeping. They don’t reminisce about the old days because it hurts too much. They work together to protect Harry, because _he_ is what is most important to both of them now. One of the countless times when Sirius is drunk, he tells Remus that he’s just as much a father to Harry as Sirius is himself.

“We’ll both be his fathers,” he slurs, before he passes out, “we’ll look after him now.” Remus looks at Sirius; his dark hair and his unruly beard, his skinny frame and his sunken in eyes. He looks at the sadness that only someone of the same mindset can really recognise, and he reaches out to tuck a blanket over him.

Sirius is one of those people who burn twice as bright and last half as long, Remus tells himself. He’s fresh out of prison, and living his life like he’s going to end up right back in there. He’s an absolute mess; any remnants of his life before Azkaban is just debris left scattered behind him like breadcrumbs, although Remus doubts he’ll ever manage to follow them back home.

Sirius is relentless and unyielding, raging like thunder but lacking the energy to make the sound, while Remus is stubborn and set in his ways, the firm hand that tells Sirius when enough is enough.

Remus doesn’t really know what happens when the unstoppable force collides with the immovable object, but he knows that when an already broken Sirius smashes into an already broken Remus, they’ll both shatter into a billion pieces.

Once they’re splayed out on the floor in tiny shards, it’ll be hard to tell which pieces belonged to him, and which ones belonged to Sirius.

But maybe that was the way it was always meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry that this hurt. It hurt during the writing process.


End file.
